he answered, well
satisfied.

"You have no doubt of their reality?" I asked.

"Not the slightest," he replied, gazing at them. "They are genuine
stones, precisely the same in quality and type as Amelia's necklet."

Amelia drew a sigh of relief. "I'll go upstairs," she said slowly,
"and bring down my own for you both to compare with them."

One minute later she rushed down again, breathless. Amelia is far
from slim, and I never before knew her exert herself so actively.

"Charles, Charles!" she cried, "do you know what dreadful thing
has happened? Two of my own stones are gone. He's stolen a couple
of diamonds from my necklet, and sold them back to me."

She held out the riviere. It was all too true. Two gems were
missing--and these two just fitted the empty places!

A light broke in upon me. I clapped my hand to my head. "By Jove,"
I exclaimed, "the little curate is--Colonel Clay!"

Charles clapped his own hand to his brow in turn. "And Jessie," he
cried, "White Heather--that innocent little Scotchwoman! I often
detected a familiar ring in her voice, in spite of the charming
Highland accent. Jessie is--Madame Picardet!"

We had absolutely no evidence; but, like the Commissary at Nice,
we felt instinctively sure of it.

Sir Charles was determined to catch the rogue. This second deception
put him on his mettle. "The worst of the man is," he said, "he has a
method. He doesn't go out of his way to cheat us; he makes us go out
of ours to be cheated. He lays a trap, and we tumble headlong into
it. To-morrow, Sey, we must follow him on to Paris."

Amelia explained to him what Mrs. O'Hagan had said. Charles took it
all in at once, with his usual sagacity. "That explains," he said,
"why the rascal used this particular trick to draw us on by. If we
had suspected him he could have shown the diamonds were real, and
so escaped detection. It was a blind to draw us off from the fact
of the robbery. He went to Paris to be out of the way when the
discovery was made, and to get a clear day's start of us. What a
consummate rogue! And to do me twice running!"

"How did he get at my jewel-case, though?" Amelia exclaimed.

"That's the question," Charles answered. "You _do_ leave it about so!"

"And why didn't he steal the whole riviere at once, and sell the
gems?" I inquired.

"Too cunning," Charles replied. "This was much better business. It
isn't easy to dispose of a big thing like that. In the first place,
the stones a